Influence Of An Organization 's Culture

Organizational structure has been set up to facilitate all goal achievements. It is a way to motivate their employees and get them to work together. It also helps its employees to follow the organizations goals, and work together as a team. In order to do this, they need to have an organized structure to be able to run the company smoothly. A main foundation of every organization is to post their mission statement and goals everywhere so that their employees can see them. An organizational culture can consist of common shared beliefs and values that are established by the organization’s leader, and then communicated and reinforce through various methods, this helps shape employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding. Overall, organizational structure and culture can effect progress of many organizations in a positive and negative way.

The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,

Organizational culture creates a unique identity that diversifies an organization from its opposition. Ogbonna & Lloyd (p, 32, 2002) defines organizational culture as “the collective sum of beliefs, values, meanings and assumptions that are shared by a social group and that

In today’s dynamic business environment leadership must understand the value and importance of their organizations’ culture. While it may never be formally defined, leadership must have a vision of their intended culture and a plan for creating and maintaining it. This vision will serve as the potter’s clay that determines everything from the dress code to the organizational structure. This paper examines two methods organizations can choose to create and maintain a healthy culture.

Organizational culture is a set of key values, assumptions, and beliefs that are shared by an organization's members. The combined key values create a custom attitude or culture that is followed by the organization's members. The culture represents the "personality of the organization" (McNamara, 1999). Through the observation of employee behavior one can help predict an organization's culture that influences its business attitude. Organizational culture can also help distinguish two companies from each other. One company may have an aggressive culture while the other a more conservative culture. Most importantly, organizational culture is a key element that helps define, support and reinforces the standard for appropriate

Another fascinating aspect of James Lincoln and his perception of business is how he treated his customers. As mentioned by him, “the customer's interests, not the stockholder's, should come first” (1, Harvard). In today's market, shareholder's are the main concern of companies. Businesses today may talk about how important the consumer is, but the shareholder always dictates how the company is ran and it's future path. James Lincoln saw past the greed and utilized his Christian values as a basis of morality. Even Lincoln said it himself when he downplayed the

John and James Lincoln professed to be devout Christians and embodied their faith in their treatment of their employees early on in the company. While a clear hierarchy and protection of management control was evident in their organizational structure, they ensured that employees had regular access to the management team both formally and informally. Management roles may have been protected and controlled but they were seen strictly as tasks to perform just as every other employee was assigned their tasks. In this respect the workplace was and remains designed strictly around function, no perks exist for management that do not exist for every employee. (Sharplin) This example points to the importance of a people-oriented culture in the workplace and is almost egalitarian in nature. (Flat World Knowledge,

James Lincoln, one of the founders of the company, accepted a plan that gave their employees a bonus at the end of each year. The bonus that they gave was 25% of what they had earned that year. Today, they still have a yearly bonus. Lincoln also evaluated workers productivity and decided what their base pay would be from that. The way that Lincoln showed respect for his employees rewarded his company with increased profits and productivity. That inspires the company to do the same today because they know that rewarding their employees for their hard work pays off in the end. Lincoln was a Christian and was proud to have strong ethics and morals. “The actual is limited, the possible is immense” is their company motto. It shows how Lincoln had large goals and hopes, which still shows today through the company. A company’s culture has so much to do with the founders original goals and values and that is what shaped such a great culture for The Lincoln Electric

An organization’s culture can be defined as “the system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that show people what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior”. Lincoln’s culture has with stood the test of time. The current business culture’s roots can be traced back to its founder’s younger brother. James F. Lincoln was the figurehead of the company in the 1900’s assuming the titles of General Manger and Vice-President. It was James who helped mold the company philosophy. His Christian principles and facilitation of multiple incentive and employee lead programs had a profoundly lasting effect on the company even after his death. In his wake he left a mix of business culture types/practices and artifacts to demonstrate those early principles and vision; that make up Lincoln’s highly effective organizational culture profile.

That both employees and management want to be a part of something great, a part of a team that is working for the same goal of making their company successful. Lincoln believed that a worker is worthy of what they earn. If they work hard, they should be paid commensurate with that effort.

Lincoln has grown in size due to its management style such as how its leadership has been structured and company ethos never being compromised. The founder James F Lincoln and his family members that followed after him, have always tried to maintain the morale and productivity of the company through innovative leadership and organisational skills.

The company was originally founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln to make electric motors he had patented. In 1907, he brought on his younger brother, James F. Lincoln, who began leading the company according to his ideals in 1914 as both General Manager and Vice President. Christian ideals were the cornerstone of James Lincoln 's business philosophy, but these were his personal beliefs, and never tried to push them onto his employees or his customers.

Once Mr. James F. Lincoln steps in as the Vice President and General Manager we start to see some incisive management decisions made. These decisions have truly built an amazing organizational culture whether The Lincoln Electric Company claims to have a company culture or not.

These tough beginnings draw deeply the formation of Lincoln’s no-frills approach to how a company should be ran. John C. Lincoln was an engineer at heart and left the company to his younger brother, James F. Lincoln, who took the company onwards keeping the company family run and true to his brothers’ values. Not just an engineer, James philosophies were marked in Christian values, which contributed to the deeply engrained nature of the culture. Further, James possessed a deep sense of business acumen that fed the company’s general philosophies. One example is his customer

Even after his death, the present workforce still highly rate their founder when it comes to depend on the model which was invented a long time ago hence, the continuation and maintenance of the brand instead. Lincoln saw the customer’s needs as the "raison d’etre "for every company, and hence,